Unfair Trade

Along with Social Security and tort reform, another component of the President's agenda this year will be Congressional approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which is essentially NAFTA but negotiated with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic instead of Canada and Mexico. Negotiations wrapped last year and was signed by Bush is May, but Congressional approval was put on hold because the White House and Republicans didn't want to become embroiled in a "free trade" fight with Democrats during the election. Much like with NAFTA, the labor and environmental protections in the agreement are too weak and will lead to the outsourcing of more American jobs. Even Democrats who supported NAFTA will be weary of voting for an agreement with job outsourcing such a sensitive issue, and as provisions would open the U.S. market to more textile and sugar imports, some Republican members from districts representing those domestic interests may think twice about voting for it.

A vote is expected in the summer or early fall, and lawmakers may also consider whether to keep President Bush's recently renewed authority to negotiate trade deals on a "fast track," without congressional consultation.

I think if there's any other issue for Democrats to attack Republicans in the next year or two other than Social Security reform it is "free trade." Democrats shot themselves in the foot, both in the short and long terms, in the 1990s by supporting NAFTA (mostly under the wrongheaded leadership of Bill Clinton), but with the effects now becoming clearer they have an oppurtunity to grab this issue again. There's few contemporary issues that can so perfectly illustrate the corporate favoritism of Republicans vs. the economic populism of the Democrats. With so many of the rural "red states" being the worst victims of these trade agreements, Democrats have never had a more perfect oppurtunity to retake that mantle - and the government.